Remember Test Icicles? Yeah, they totally ruled. Sadly, they broke up not long after releasing their awesome debut LP, but silver lining has arrived in the form of Lightspeed Champion. Guitarist and sometime vocalist Devonte Hynes must have had some sort of epiphany after Test Icicles’ demise, as he traded the searing guitar riffs and acid-throated vocals (not to mention the hot pink guitars) of his former project for a whole new acoustic approach and began to record folk songs under the Lightspeed Champion moniker in 2006. A year later, he’s got two great singles under his belt and a highly anticipated debut album waiting in the wings, and appears primed to become the unlikeliest star the alt-country genre has ever seen. But before Test Icicles fade from our collective memory forever, let’s just this appreciate this track one last time, because, well, it’s the fucking jam. Read the rest of this entry »

Canada’s yielded some of the world’s best new bands over the last five years, but 2007 is yet to see a single band (save for maybe Holy Fuck) come close to the greatness of previous exports like the Arcade Fire, New Pornographers and Wolf Parade. However, Vancouver’s own Paper Cranes look primed to carry the torch with an extremely promising debut EP and 7″ out in Canada and the UK, respectively. The Veins EP compiles four of the band’s best tracks to date and an excellent remix, while the vinyl single takes the EP’s standout tracks, “I’ll Love You Until Your Veins Explode” and “Milkrun”, and slaps them onto two sides of a 7″ record to introduce the band to audiences across the pond. Out on Longest Mile Records, the label founded by the Futureheads’ Ross Millard, it’s one of the most impressive debut singles of the year featuring two sides of keyboard and piano-driven pop perfection. Read the rest of this entry »

Some of you may remember I mentioned Vice’s virtual Lower East Side (vLES) project a few weeks ago when Les Savy Fav hosted. If not, you’re probably all “What the fuck?” and should read the summary above. Basically, it’s Second Life for hipsters and now I’ve been invited to host this Thursday’s virtual show with Beirut at the virtual Bowery Ballroom. James from Green Pea-ness will be hosting with me, even though I’m pretty sure neither of us have ever devoted a word of text to Beirut on our respective pages.

Obviously it would have been nice if I could have put this out at some point during the summer, back when fun was still allowed and dance parties were an everyday occurrence. But as some of you may remember, this shit wasn’t exactly operational during the summer months. It’s especially frustrating since I’ve had the bulk of this mix done since, like, March, so it’s a bit outdated, but I hope you can deal. Basically the goal here was to make the essential party mix for summer 2007 and I don’t think I was too far off the mark, but I’ll let you be the judge. Read the rest of this entry »

Pop music – good pop music, rather – made a triumphant return in 2007. Mr. Timberlake began the process and established himself as the new King of Pop with Futuresex/Lovesounds in late 2006 and kept things moving right on into 2007 with “My Love” and “What Goes Around”. Timbaland made sure it was here to stay, producing solid gold hits for Nelly Furtado, M.I.A., and even the loathsome Omarion, later reaching number one on the charts himself with “The Way I Are”, pretty much the only good thing he’s ever done as a solo artist. Kanye was there doing his part, taking Daft Punk back to the top of the charts with “Stronger” and releasing another excellent LP in “Graduation”, and even Robyn made a comeback, collaborating with producer Kleerup and reaching the top of the UK charts for the first time in nine years on the strength of “With Every Heartbeat”.